Nutrient Streams Project

Summary

From May 1999 - June 2002, CPCB sampled 94 reference streams located throughout the four states of USEPA Region 7. This effort is part of the USEPA’s initiative to establish regionally-based nutrient criteria for waterbodies, with the goal of protecting aquatic life from nutrient overenrichment (For more information: see Nutrient Workgroup site).

Our study sites are distributed among the 14 Omernik Level III ecoregions of the region. Scientists and others in the four states nominated 250 streams in the region as being a reference, or least impacted, condition (see Biocriteria Workgroup for more information). From these we randomly chose the streams to sample.

We sampled the streams for a variety of parameters including dissolved oxygen, conductivity, turbidity, and TN and TP and their constituents. We also measured velocity and collected macroinvertebrate samples.

Data

Stream sampling data for this project are available in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet format. To view and/or download these data, please click here.

Analysis, Results, or Reports

Now that we have completed sampling, we have begun to analyze the data and provide preliminary reports on the results of our analyses. The following preliminary report, in the form of a Microsoft Powerpoint presentation, is currently available for download: